All In Transcript - E270

Ep. 270

The following transcript is intended to aid in your study. However, while we try to go through the transcript, our transcripts are primarily computer-generated and often contain errors. Please forgive the transcripts’ imperfections.

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[00:00:00] Morgan Jones Pearson: I will always connect TC Christensen to my time as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. No one likes to spend a holiday away from home, but the MTC pulled out all the stops on Thanksgiving Day 2012 by bringing Elder Jeffrey R. Holland to speak to us in the morning and then letting us watch TC's film 17 Miracles in the afternoon.

Maybe it was because that movie was the only real film I saw for the same Subsequent 18 months, but I felt as if those handcart pioneers kept me going my entire mission. Now, TC's newest film escape from Germany tells the story of a group of missionaries that I have a feeling will have the same impact on a new generation.

The movie tells the story of an effort to speedily move 85 missionaries to save the safety in adjacent countries as Hitler's army was rapidly closing borders in August of 1939. This movie is not called 17 Miracles, but I assure you it is full of them. T. C. Christensen is an American cinematographer, film director, and writer best known for his work on the IMAC, and true historical movies, including 17 Miracles, Ephraim's Rescue, The Fighting Preacher, and the Cokeville Miracle.

Christensen is also a member of the American Society of Cinematographers. Christensen lives with his wife, Katie, where he continues to be schooled in the fine arts of putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher and closing drawers all the way.

This is All In, an LDS TV show. podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson, and I am honored to have TC Christiansen on the line with me today. TC, welcome.

[00:01:52] T.C. Christensen: I love to be here. This is fun, Megan.

[00:01:56] Morgan Jones Pearson: Uh, well, this is such a treat for me and I am,

[00:02:00] T.C. Christensen: I called you Megan.

[00:02:03] Morgan Jones Pearson: Listen, I had a, I had a great aunt who called me for literally like 12 years of my life until she went on a mission and saw it in writing. So I'm never offended by that.

[00:02:14] T.C. Christensen: Okay, Megan.

[00:02:18] Morgan Jones Pearson: So I guess to start us off, I'd like to start kind of at the beginning of your story. I understand that your dad acquired a camera when you were a little boy and that you were drawn to that camera. Can you tell me a little bit about how that came to be and how that seemingly small thing kind of changed the course of your life?

[00:02:38] T.C. Christensen: My dad was a dentist, but he had cousins that were in photography and through them, he had came up with this eight millimeter movie camera. And this is in the fifties and. In the fifties, that was really quite unusual. I don't meet very many people who have family in the fifties were taking home movies, and I was fascinated by the camera, not so much.

I wasn't like the type of kid that wanted to be out in front of it and acting like a dingle dork and all that. It wasn't that I wasn't, what is my dad doing and asking questions and how does this work? And that were. Well, it only took me a few years and I was sneaking his camera out and filming my friends and trying to figure out how it worked.

And it was really by the eighth grade, I decided I, I don't even know what that means to be a movie maker or work in film, but that's what I want to do. Well, my pair, but my whole family's medical. And doctors and dentists and nurses and, and I'm sure my parents just thought, what kind of a kook have we got going here?

[00:03:51] Morgan Jones Pearson: They didn't even know what to do with you.

[00:03:54] T.C. Christensen: No, not as first, but you know what? They are, were terrific parents and they instilled in all of us, 10 kids. And they instilled in all of us the idea that, you know, we can do whatever we want to do and need to do. And so I wasn't scared about it. I. Just took out after it, that this is what I'm going to do.

And it's a great thing. I think when you're that age, you know, 13 or 14 and you decide then what you want to do, and then your life just. Those if you're way older, it's way harder.

[00:04:36] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yeah, no, I believe that it's kind of like, uh, that Alice in Wonderland quote that President Monson always liked to quote about.

If you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter what path you take. I think when you know, it's, it's very clear what kind of path you want to take. TC, you started making films in junior high and you've never had a different job. You've said that it's the power and influence films are capable of having that has kept you working in film.

What is it about film that makes it such a powerful way to communicate a message?

[00:05:11] T.C. Christensen: Well, this is what I think, but I'm on your podcast, so I get to say what I think today. I think it's really so powerful. Film is so powerful for the most part because film encompasses all the arts. There's music, dance choreography, art, photography, storytelling, theater, uh, any art is in some way encased in film.

And I think that allows for, um, a much deeper experience. It does to me that, and, and so I really try to. Think about all those art forms as we're doing a film. And am I doing a good job in not just one thing, but in all of those things? That makes a lot of sense. The answer is usually no, I'm not doing a good job, but that's what I'm trying.

[00:06:06] Morgan Jones Pearson: No, that's not true. I found it interesting that I learned that Keith Merrill, who people are probably most familiar with because of the church's film, The Testament, has been a mentor to you throughout your life. I wondered because I think this is something that comes up frequently on this podcast is people have different people who have really made a difference by taking time or an interest in someone.

So I wondered, why would you say that Keith's mentorship? Or mentorship in general makes a difference in people's lives.

[00:06:41] T.C. Christensen: Well, for, for me, Keith was the first, like, really out there professional movie person that I had a connection with and got to spend some time with. And I can tell you, I learned more from him In the first week, then if I was just trying to figure it out myself, it would take me years that there there's, there's a lot of technical things to do with filmmaking.

And especially then it was film. It wasn't any of this where you hold up your camera and you get a great picture, your phone, and you get a great picture. You had to know more about technical things. And he was very good at all of that. He's an artist and a storyteller. And I just think in anybody's case, a mentor can make just a huge difference.

I am not terrific at it, but I do involve young people and allow them to come and intern and spend time with me trying to do a little bit of that payback. Because Keith, and there were others too, Keith really stands out, but that, that just helped me along and it touches me now to think how kind they were to me and helping me get a foothold in this business.

[00:08:03] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yeah, which and, and I think it's something nobody has to do. It has to be kind of an intentional choice to take that time and, and make that investment. TC, you have made movies primarily about church history. Some of the church history is more recent church history. Some of it is older. But they're all remarkable stories throughout the history of the church or, or the lives of church members.

I wondered, how do you determine which stories you tell and which ones are worth the effort because making a movie has to be a ton of effort.

[00:08:40] T.C. Christensen: Well, let me tell you a couple of things about that. One is that my career really was as a cinematographer. I was the director of photography and I worked on.

Other people's films and their stories, and it was a great training ground because I got to work under a lot of other directors, and there were many things I learned from them, and there were a lot of things I learned not to do from them. That's the other side of it, too. But. It was only when I hit about, I don't know, it was maybe 50 something.

And I got thinking, you know, I'm getting old and fatter and balder. And, and I need to, I've got stories I want to tell. I really don't want to go to the end of my career and not have taken advantage of that and do things that I want to do. And I think the most important choice that you make as a filmmaker is what is the story you're going to tell?

I mean, how many times have you been to the, you go to the mega to the multiplex and there's all these movies and you go and pick one, you go and you come out and you go, Who thought that was gonna be good , that wasn't a good story. That wasn't interesting. It wasn't. Uh, and so I really put a lot of effort into trying to find what I think is a good story.

And one of the ways I do that is I think I'm kind of an every man in that. If it, if a story touches me and I am interested in it and think it has heart and emotion and all those. humor, all those things that I'm looking for, then I start researching it and jump in and see if we can make something out of it.

[00:10:35] Morgan Jones Pearson: So you, you feel like if it appeals to you, that it probably appeals to other people because you're just kind of an every man

[00:10:42] T.C. Christensen: yeah I'm just a dork walking around, you know, I think, yeah, I think that a lot of times filmmakers who are very successful get bored. With normal stories, they want to kind of move into another realm and try to do something different.

And I don't see that very often succeed. I'm just, I'm just kind of interested in the human experience and conflict and protagonists. And, and so anyway, that's a lot of my criteria.

[00:11:17] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yeah, let me ask you this kind of as a follow up to that TC. I feel like you do do such a good job of capturing the human experience and and especially within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.

I wonder what why is it that you've chosen to focus your career on?

[00:11:44] T.C. Christensen: Well, here's this truth, Morgan, you're going to hear it first on your podcast, the actual TC truth. I didn't decide, I never have decided that I was going to focus on stories of the church and history of the church and so forth. Here's what happened and continues to happen.

I have files of stories and I look at these stories. And decide which are the best stories and guess what in the church, we have the best stories. That's how it works for me is I just choose. This is the best story I can find right now to tell. And I don't sit around and fuss about, well, will this make money?

And are people going to really love this or not? Forget all that. I just pick the best story I can find and if, if I do a decent job of telling a good story, it'll all work out. That's, I don't worry about it.

[00:12:49] Morgan Jones Pearson: Why do you think it is when you go into your files that Those are the stories that emerge as, as the best stories.

What is it about those church related stories that are touching?

[00:13:04] T.C. Christensen: Well, to me, they have the classic story type structure. There's usually, there's a hero. And the hero wants something they're trying to accomplish something very often that hero has been wronged in some way and ends up in a situation that they didn't put themselves really into and it's now it's tough to get out and then there's all these obstacles keeping them and then at the end.

I try to do what I think is a terrific screenwriting tip, is you give the audience the ending they want, but you don't give it to them in the way they expect it. And these church stories that I've come across and dealt with, they just have those qualities, that they make a good story, and so I want to tell them.

[00:13:57] Morgan Jones Pearson: I wanted to ask you, you mentioned that the stories have a clear hero. That's one thing that I noticed. Especially watching this most recent film, the hero. is very clear in this story. It's the missionary that's trying to save the other missionaries and help them escape Germany. When you are approaching these films, is the hero always clear when you're researching or sometimes do you have to determine which character in the story to focus on as the hero?

[00:14:29] T.C. Christensen: You know, for me, I, in my initial look at the story, if I don't see someone that I think could be a strong protagonist, then I'm probably not interested. So I know that early on and go after that. There could be, in some of the stories I've done, I think I could have had someone else In 17 Miracles, you know, I glommed onto Levi Savage as the protagonist, but there were so many possibilities in that film of protagonists.

With our new film, Escape from Germany, there's just some amazing things about Norm Siebold, Elder Siebold, who is the protagonist. And the first one was not his doing. You know, we always think of missionaries are two by two. It's always two. Ding, ding, ding. There they go down. In this case, the mission president needs help and somebody to help get those missionaries out.

And he goes to one elder. And says, I want you to do this by yourself. Well, that's, that's terrific. That's Clint Eastwood. I love that. That's just one guy against the Nazis and the German shepherds and everything. Then, and then there's two things about elder Siebel that really cemented it for me. He has two amazing qualities.

The first one is he doesn't really take guff. I mean, he he's, he's kind, all those kinds of things, but he's, he has perseverance and there's some scenes in the film where he stands up to people. I'm talking people with guns that just amazed me still that he would do that. And then the second thing is that elder Sebald.

Is completely able to tune into the spirit and be guided by the spirit. And does things in the film that just flabbergast me that he could be so tuned in and so right. And those are, I think, two great messages for missionaries today. And for any of us,

[00:16:58] Morgan Jones Pearson: I think in this film, because it is all missionaries, I think it's so powerful to see the Lord's hand in the life of his missionaries and how much he cares for them.

And I, I wanted to ask you, so Elder Sebald, Is deceased, as were all the other characters in the film with the exception of one that I understand was still living at the age of 105 and passed away just before you all started filming. So, in a case like that, where most of the. The primary sources have passed away.

How do you approach making the story as accurate as possible when you start doing your research?

[00:17:43] T.C. Christensen: Well, I'm looking for just accounts, you know, things that somebody says happened. And if it's something really pretty out there, miraculous or whatever, I always hope that there's even more than one account.

That's one reason I felt good about making the Cokeville Miracle, about this miraculous way that the children were saved from this bomber in their school. It wasn't like one kid that said, you know, they had a spiritual experience, saw an angel or whatever. There were multiple. And of course, mouth of two or three witnesses, that kind of stuff, that makes a big difference for me.

You mentioned, uh, that I, how do I make sure it's true? And I want to make sure I make a point of that. I want it to be true. I want to tell true stories. And I want to be true to the story. Now that doesn't mean that I don't make a few things up. I have to, because I don't know the dialogue. I don't know what they were saying to each other.

There's always things that, you know, I need to bridge a gap or something like that, but I really do make an effort to make true stories. And in our culture, like I go out doing a fireside or something, you know what I almost every time hear as a question, how much of this is true? We want to know if it's made up, then tell us because that's a different feeling that you get.

As opposed to, wow, I'm watching something that really happened.

[00:19:30] Morgan Jones Pearson: Well, I, I am guilty of being one of those people that watches a movie and immediately I'm like, how much of it was true? We just watched the movie, The Founder this week. My husband had to watch it for school and immediately I was like fat checking to see what, what actually happened. So you were able to interview, and I was trying to pull up that sister missionary's name.

[00:19:52] T.C. Christensen: Irma Rosenheim.

[00:19:53] Morgan Jones Pearson: Okay, you were able to interview Irma prior to her passing. What was that like for you?

[00:20:01] T.C. Christensen: Well, she was 103 when I met her, she, you know, had the effects of age, but she remembered a lot of things about the evacuation. For me, just to be in her presence was worth every second, that this was a person that I'm now going to attempt to make a film about, and she touched me.

You know that she went through this and now I, I feel this onus on me that I want to tell her story. I want people to know what she went through. I had planned a terrific scene where I was going to use the real Irma Rosen had in the film. And reveal that at the end of the film, that this is the real person that happened to well, 105 and COVID and everything got in the way.

And I was not able to do that. Um, but I am so thankful to Terry Montague, who was the author of the book that during the seventies, she got the bug and she went out and started interviewing all these evacuated. Missionaries, everyone she could find and quote the book. And if it weren't for Terry, really many, many of these stories, I think would have been lost.

And I don't know if I'd, I'd have even had enough to make a film out of.

[00:21:35] Morgan Jones Pearson: Well, and, and I guess that, that leads to another question that I had. So in this case, there was a book that kind of was helpful in, in the research. And at other times I think it's been people's journals that you've kind of drawn upon.

Were there a lot of journals in with this movie or no?

[00:21:55] T.C. Christensen: Not a lot. Terry accessed as many as she could. But here's the, I think an interesting thing to tell you about. Okay. And one reason that the journals Well, aren't that prevalent with Joseph Fielding Smith, who was an apostle at the time, was there in Europe and helped overseeing the evacuation.

Well, when the missionaries got out and they're about to start home, he told them, now, when you get home, don't go telling everybody about what happened here and about some of the things we pulled off, you know, to sneak you out of Germany. He said, we're not at war with Germany and we don't want things in the media or whatever that might inflame relations.

And so just don't talk about it. Well, they didn't. They go, they go home, they don't talk about it. It's only a matter of a few years and now we're in the war and almost all of those missionaries now end up in the war for five or six years. Well, they go off and do that. Then they come home. What are they thinking about girls and getting back into school and having a family and, you know, all of get back to life and they just didn't think about it and they didn't talk about it.

And when Terry started to talk to these missionaries in the seventies, almost all of them had a hard time remembering. What really went on? Uh, and and if they would have been asked years later, I think that have been very few stories that would have been told and told accurately.

[00:23:38] Morgan Jones Pearson: How does that make it different when you're working on a film, kind of relying on this book of people's experiences that may not be as well remembered versus the ones where you have drawn upon people's journals and firsthand writings?

[00:23:56] T.C. Christensen: Well, it does give me a little more freedom, you know, and I don't take that to a great extent, but it is different. I have, in this case, family members who are, you know, they're, they're sons and daughters. And they care about their ancestor, and they want to make sure I represent them well. And that's a little more, I don't know, scary than if I'm making a film about somebody who died 120 years ago or something like that, and spilled it down.

But let me tell you one other thing I like to say about the, uh, the descendants and the ancestors. We made a great effort in making this film to go out and find as many of the descendants of these missionaries as possible. And then we invited them to come and be extras in the film. You know, those are the, they're behind the scenes, they're sitting on benches, whatever, they don't have lines.

And they came. They came every day. They were terrific. And every day when they came, I would, before we began, I would introduce them to the cast and crew, and they would say what family they were from. And every day I would cry. Because it just got me to, to look at the, you know, these fresh faced, You know, descendants and they came from other states even at their own expense.

And they came because they loved their ancestor and they wanted to honor them. And then the next day I said, I'm not going to cry. I've cried every time now. Okay. I'm going to cry again.

[00:25:54] Morgan Jones Pearson: Wow, that's awesome. I love that you did that. You talked in an article with the church about how in these, these films that you have had to draw upon journals, um, that you have been so grateful for the people who have taken the time and something about your quote, TC, made me think about whether it's the scriptures or pioneers.

I feel like I make excuses for why I'm not a better journal writer. And yet I was thinking about like, there are people that were like pushing hand carts all day long and then when they were completely exhausted, still made an effort to record the things that they were experiencing. Um, so for you, what kind of gratitude have you felt for the people?

You mentioned gratitude for the author of the book, which I think is, is awesome. But as you've done different films, what kind of gratitude have you felt for people who took the time to record their experiences in a journal?

[00:26:53] T.C. Christensen: That really started with and came from 17 Miracles. And as you mentioned just then, hand carved people and then did, And it really hit me when I was trying to tell the story of Albert.

He's the little fellow in 17 miracles that has a physical handicap and was not able to make it all the way to Salt Lake and dies on the banks of the Elkhorn river. And, you know, the only reason we even knew anything about him at all is because One day he took off ahead of everybody else to try to get a head start and he got lost, he went the wrong way.

And so everybody had to stop and go and look for him and find him and a few people wrote. In their journals, Oh, today we didn't go very far because this young man got lost and then, and then they'd tell us just a few things about him if they wouldn't have done that, if he wouldn't have gotten lost, I wouldn't have had this amazing character for the film and I think there are, there's really a ton more of those that we've lost through history.

There was in the Martin company. a man that was assigned to take care of all these handicapped type saints, um, or very pregnant women or whatever. And they, they put them all in this one group. There was about 20 something of them and they put them under the direction of a guy who was named George P. Waugh. And George P. Waugh was like 70 years old. Well, that's like a hundred years old now. He's in charge of all of this. That's a story. That's a fad. Can you imagine what, how cool that story would be to tell of this bedraggled group of saints and they're all got problems and they're trying to get to Zion?

I can never make this story because that's all we know. I don't know anything else about it. But those that did take the time and wrote things down or even in their elderly age that part of their life, their grandkids would typically come and say, hey, tell us about what it was like when you, and then they tell the story and now we can benefit by what they learned in their testimonies and all that.

Love all that connection.

[00:29:21] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you mentioned earlier the things that you've learned from elder siebold. Um, I also loved you were talking in an interview previously about ephraim hanks and The things that you learned from making film about him I mean you said that you learned from him that great things can happen when opportunity meets preparation I wondered if there are other lessons that stand out in your mind that you've learned from him From characters in the films that you've made.

[00:29:52] T.C. Christensen: Yeah, I let's see. I'll just name a few that come to mind quickly in the film. We did love Kennedy about the teenage girl with bad and disease. I think she was a really terrific lesson in learning that. Attitude is more important than circumstances. You know, she, she was going to have a good attitude. She was the one with all the problems, but she still had a good attitude.

Or, uh, in the fighting preacher, Willard and Rebecca Bean learn and hopefully teach us kindness and love. Wins not, not fists, not boxing in the end, kindness and love.

[00:30:38] Morgan Jones Pearson: The fighting preacher is one of my absolute favorites. I can't watch the end of that movie without tearing up.

[00:30:44] T.C. Christensen: Good. You're a sweet person. A kind person.

[00:30:49] Morgan Jones Pearson: You spend, and I have noticed this is a trend throughout the movies that you make TC, but in this movie in particular, you spend over 10 minutes at the end of the film telling the true stories behind the characters. And in some cases, there are people that we didn't even get to know super well in the movie, kind of a more minor characters.

Why is it so important to you to tell the true story at the end of the film?

[00:31:18] T.C. Christensen: I think it does a good epilogue, for me, with my films, it does a couple of things. One is I just think it's interesting. I think people want to know what happened to them. This only covers them until they're 22 years old. What happened, anything interesting later in their life.

But the probably bigger reason, it solidifies that this is a true story. I saw a very good true story film not long ago. I enjoyed it. I thought it was terrific. They did not do an epilogue and you know why I think. They didn't do an epilog because they had made up so much stuff telling this story. Mm-Hmm.

It's a true story, but they just added all so much stuff that an app epilogue would not have been satisfying and that I had to make up a lot of that too. I don't want, I don't want my audience to consider that. I want them to have that solidification at the end of the film. We've just witnessed something that really happened, and here's what happened to those people later in life.

[00:32:33] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yeah. Well, I, I think that's, it's so important to be true to the characters. I, I mentioned that I have this bad habit of always like fact checking, and one of my biggest disappointments, well, it wasn't even a disappointment, it's just a frustration from a film, but the movie The Greatest Showman, when I was looking up to see like what was real from that.

There's the, the opera singer in that and they portray her as, as somebody that kind of ruins the main character's marriage. And in reality, like that never happened. And the woman was an incredible person who gave. a ton of what she earned to a children's hospital. And so I'm like, after all that that woman did, like this is how you chose to portray her in a movie.

And it really made me mad. And I haven't watched the movie sets because it bothered me so badly.

[00:33:28] T.C. Christensen: Well, I'm sure you've really hurt the box office, Morgan. I'm glad you took that stand.

[00:33:34] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yeah. Yeah. Obviously it made a big difference to the greatest showman, a real flop.

[00:33:39] T.C. Christensen: But that, but that's a terrific example.

Um, now I don't remember if I don't think at the beginning of that film, they have a super that says true story or based on a true story or anything like that, whatever, but I do. Right. And so I feel that I need to, to make sure that I am doing my business and, and making sure people know I'm telling a true story,

[00:34:06] Morgan Jones Pearson: which I think is very admirable.

Um, tc you've said that the best movies carry emotion, and I think you do a really good job of capturing emotion and film without feeling emotionally manipulative or overly sappy. How do you kind of find that balance?

[00:34:26] T.C. Christensen: Well, let me just tell you first, I, that one of my goals as I'm writing and laying out what we're going to do is in a film is I go through, I want every scene we do to have an emotion attached to it.

I don't want to do just a bunch of exposition where you're learning things about somebody or whatever in this each scene. I want there to be something sad or funny or love and love, love or poignant or, you know, something, because I think that's one reason we love movies and go to movies is because we feel things.

We don't just see things we. We feel it. As to how I do that, I, it's a really case by case thing. I try not to overdo it. You can easily do that. I'm sure that I have sometimes. Sometimes I've maybe underplayed. Something that's going on, but it's mostly a matter of feel. My son, Tanner is the editor of all my films.

He has his own career. He doesn't need me. He doesn't need daddy. He's doing great on his own. But he's still stoops over and comes over and does the editing with me. And one of the best things I ever did with tan is I kind of got him into music. I always played in a band and 10 got in bands and always played.

And he's very good. With music and music editing, where you, we take music and cut it and create it so that it comes up and flows bigger right at the moment that's visually For you. emotional, and then kind of lags and comes down. So you hear the dialogue and, you know, all those, those kinds of things. He's very good at that.

And he has been a really good help with me in, in just what you're saying about creating emotions.

[00:36:41] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yeah. Music makes a massive difference. So I, that makes a ton of sense to me. Um, I want to ask you one more question before we get to our final question. One thing that I read as I was preparing for the interview is, uh, you talked about how, when people ask you, what's your favorite film that you've made?

That hopefully your answer is always the most recent one. Um, which I like that answer because I always have a hard time when people ask what interview or what podcast is my favorite. But while this one is fresh, while Escape from Germany is fresh for you, what do you think it is that you will carry with you from the experience of making this film that will make it, quote unquote, one of your favorites?

[00:37:26] T.C. Christensen: These are things that stick with me. It's the story itself, the things I learned from what those characters teach us and the things they learn. And then to a great extent, it's the people that I work with. You know, film is a freelance business, which means if there's somebody on our set that, I don't know, causes problems or whatever, there's something negative.

You don't hire them the next time. And that doesn't mean that just because somebody hasn't been on every one of my films at some point wanting to get rid of them, it's a business and you come and you go and you know, all those, but it does enable you to kind of to a great degree, handpick people that you want to be around and in our area.

Here, filming in Utah, we have a lot of really terrific people, in terms of crew, but also in terms of the cast. The people that we get to play these parts, they are almost never full time actors. It's very difficult to live in a town like, or a state like this, and try to be a full time actor. There just isn't enough Money in it to support the family, let alone just even yourself.

So they tend to do it because they really want to do it and they love the story and they want to be part of the story. Those people touch me and I want to be with them again. And I, I will very, very often repeat them and have them come back.

[00:39:10] Morgan Jones Pearson: That's awesome. Well, this has been, I feel like I've learned a lot about the movie making business, which is a world that's completely foreign to me.

So I appreciate you taking the time. My last question for you, TC, is what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

[00:39:28] T.C. Christensen: I knew you were going to ask that.

[00:39:32] Morgan Jones Pearson: How did you know?

[00:39:34] T.C. Christensen: I, uh, I just know, and immediately I didn't even have to think about that. This, this answer, I don't know. I, this, it just immediately popped in my head a story about my dad, uh, who's been gone for about 22 years next week.

And the story is, uh, my dad was traveling, going to see one of his other kids. In the east, and he had a health problem, they had to go find a doctor, went to this doctor, and the doctor is talking to my dad and making small talk and getting to know him, whatever, and didn't take him long before the doctor said to my dad, you have any kids?

He said, yeah, he said, how many kids do you have? And my dad said, 10, I have 10 kids. This East coast doctor said, 10 kids. What are you? Some kind of a Mormon. And without any hesitation, my dad said, I am through and through no hesitation. No embarrassment. No justification of, well, I had a farm and I needed to, it's just, yeah, that's who I am.

And, uh, I've thought about that a lot. What a great example my dad was, and I want to be like that too. No embarrassment, no justification. This is who I am.

[00:41:25] Morgan Jones Pearson: TC, thank you so much. It's been so good to talk to you and I appreciate you sharing that story about your dad. That's a great story.

[00:41:34] T.C. Christensen: Morgan, you're fun to talk to. Oh, thank you. We need to do this more often.

[00:41:39] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yes, sir. Thank you very, very much.

We are so grateful to TC Christensen for joining us on this week's episode. The movie Escape from Germany is in theaters now. And you can visit EscapeFromGermanyFilm. com for ticket information. If the movie is not available near you, a streaming option will be available through Deseret Books soon, and we'll let you know when that is available.

I assure you that this movie is worth your time, and I hope you'll take the time to watch. Thanks to Derek Campbell for his help with this episode, and thank you so much for listening.
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